Over the past four years, rural voters have drawn enormous attention--and enormous responsibility--for the presidency of Donald Trump. Ditto working-class whites, people like coal miners, for example. Now, however, in the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the media are waking up to the fact that many of the insurrectionists were neither rural nor low-income. Indeed, the media are waking up to a fact I've been trying to draw attention to for some time: lots of rich folks voted for Trump, and they were prominent among the folks who led the raid on the Capitol last week. We're learning more and more about them because (1) they are starting to be arrested and (2) the dead among them are being identified.
This story from the Los Angeles Times provides a good overview of who the rioters were. The headline is "A broad cross section of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, arrests show. Now what?," and Kevin Rector, Chris Megerian and Anna M. Phillips report. Here's an excerpt:
The reality of the Jan. 6 attack, captured in affidavits and court filings in dozens of criminal cases, is that the crowd included not just fringe radicals but also a broad cross section of President Trump’s supporters — people with office jobs, kids and mortgages, and otherwise respectable public reputations.Among those identified and charged with crimes by law enforcement as participating in the insurrection were municipal employees, former members of the military, social media influencers, police officers and a school therapist. Also charged were a data analytics company’s chief executive and a two-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer from USC.
They came from across the country. A West Virginia state delegate livestreamed himself alongside the rioters. Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said one of his officers — who resigned Thursday — had “penetrated” the Capitol building and was expected to face federal charges soon. Two Virginia police officers have been charged with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
Law enforcement officials are alarmed by the varied backgrounds of the pro-Trump intruders and say it can be difficult to prevent attacks and uncover dangerous motives when extremists hide behind the veneer of normality.
The New York Post story about a Dallas real estate agent who flew a private plane to the riot has gotten a fair amount of attention. Note that the framing by Jennifer Taub, who re-tweeted the story, implies that Trump voters are homogeneous by highlighting the topic of socioeconomic class based on one very rich rioter. That is, she questions the economic anxiety or economic distress of all Trump voters by noting that this Trump-inspired rioter is under no economic distress.
What follows are some Tweets that further illustrate the point that these were not just--and perhaps not even primarily--working class white voters.
Here are two other stories about relatively affluent folks who participated in the Capitol riots, this one about a CEO from suburban Chicago and this one about a man who owns a carwash in suburban Georgia. Finally, here's one by Connor Sheets for Pro Publica about a rioter from Huntsville, Alabama who appears to have been living a middle-class existence; he died of a heart attack during the events in Washington, DC.
Some nevertheless blame working-class white and rural voters, while others see the Capitol riots as vindication of sorts for the working-class and rural folks who've been widely blamed for Trump's presidency. Here, I respond to a journalist who is ignoring some important facts about poverty on the day after the riot. Interestingly, she grew up and now again lives in the same county as the Gravette, Arkansas man widely photographed with his feet up in Nancy Pelosi's office, the one now in federal custody; however, she went away for an Ivy League education and is now back working as a reporter for Facing South. Generally, I am a fan of her work, but her argument that there is no "economic anxiety" is an unhelpful one that will alienate many who are, in fact, suffering economic distress:
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| Screenshot taken January 7, 2021 |
Here's more of that unhelpful framing, which I've not yet responded to, from Amy Siskind, who leads The New Agenda.
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| Screenshot taken January 15, 2021 |
Siskind went down this path after the Charlottesville riots, too, suggesting that event proved racism on the part of Trump supporters, to the exclusion of economic anxiety. I wrote about the problem with that framing here. What's lost in that framing, obviously, is that not all folks who voted for Trump--not nearly all of them--marched in Charlottesville or on the Capitol last week. It also has the very unfortunate effect of dismissing the economic pain of many Americans who voted for Trump, just as journalist Olivia Paschal does.
Here are some more Tweets (along my responses to some of them):
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| Screenshots from January 8, 2021 |
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| Screenshot from January 14, 2021 |
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| Screenshots from January 12, 2021 |
Finally, here's a screenshot of data I've shared frequently in recent years; it's from the 2016 exit polls, broken down by income. It shows that it is, in fact, those who might be called the "petit bourgeoisie," those who've gotten a leg up on the poor folks around them, who are most likely to oppose social safety net programs and support Trump.
Cross-posted to Legal Ruralism.